Father of Sport Psychology
Scott R. Furtwengler
EPSY 8351 History & Philosophy of Psychological Systems
Tuesday, June 26, 2012

 History of sport psychology
 Coleman Griffith
 Relation to my research interests

 The Early Years (1895-1920)
 The Griffith Era (1920-1938)
 Preparation for the Future (1938-1965)
 The Establishment of Academic Sport
Psychology (1966-1977)
 Multidisciplinary Science & Practice in Sport
and Exercise Psychology (1978-2000)
 Contemporary Sport and Exercise Psychology
(2000-present)

 Born May 22, 1893 in Iowa
 1915 A. B., Greenville College
 1920 Ph.D., University of Illinois
 1925-1932 Research in Athletics lab
 1932-1944 Bureau of Institutional Research
 1944-1953 Provost
 1956 NEA’s Office of Statistical Information
 1962 Oregon State System of Higher Ed
 1966 Dies at age 72

William Wundt
University of
Leipzig
Harry Wolfe Edward Titchener
PhD Leipzig (1886) PhD Leipzig (1892)
Madison Bentley
PhD Cornell (1898)
Coleman Griffith
PhD Illinois (1920)

 “Psychology and Its Relation to Athletic
Competition” (1925)
 To teach young and inexperienced coaches
 Adapt information already gained in the field of
psychology to sport
 Use the scientific method & experimental lab to
discover new facts and principles that would aid
the practitioner in the field

 Four Types of systematic observation & research
 The gathering, compiling, and interpreting of records
from different practice fields
 The observations of shifting moods and
temperaments of athletes when apparatus failed to
do so
 The surveying of athletic aptitude and athletic talent
 The solving of special psychological and physiological
problems

 Examples of experimental research
 Effect of physical exercise on rate of learning
 Effects of emotions and anxiety on learning
 Psychological hunches and jinxes
 Effect of will power on performance
 The psychology of pep sessions
 Relation between exercise, learning, and
resistance to disease

 Griffith’s Legacy
 Delineation of functions of the field
 Receptivity to multiple ways of studying sport
psychology
 Contributions to psychology and to sport
 Positive, realistic, expectations for the field
 Focus on performance enhancement and personal
growth
 Recognition that knowledge knows no international
borders
 Advancing both research and practice

 Background
 Robert Furtwengler’s martial arts school: Zen and
Maxwell Maltz
 Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Mind-Body problem
 Played and coached basketball and volleyball
 Sport Psychology at University of Tennessee-
Knoxville
 Honors program administrator
 Beliefs and their effect on learning & performance

 Motivation in Education
 Achievement Motivation Theory: Atkinson,
McClelland
 Attribution Theory: Heider, Weiner,
 Achievement Goal Theory: Duda, Dweck, Maehr,
Nicholls Roberts
 Self-efficacy Theory: Bandura
 Self-perceptions of competence: Harter
 Expectancy-Values Theories: Eccles & Wigfield, Lewin
 Stereotype Threat: Steele

 Personal epistemology: beliefs about
knowledge and knowing
 Mindset (Dweck)
 Placebo effect
 Belief formation
 Self-theories/Implicit Theories
 Belief bias
 Naïve theories

 Can we modify long-held beliefs to improve
learning and performance? Is attribution
retraining possible?
 Can successful instruction ever effectively
eliminate early, erroneous intuitions or will
they persist of the comprehensiveness or
systematicity of the newly acquired theory?
 Are beliefs habituated thoughts?
 What are the neural correlates of belief?

 Mangels, J. A., Butterfield, B., Lamb, J., Good, C.,
& Dweck, C. S. (2006). Why do beliefs about
intelligence influence learning success? A social
cognitive neuroscience model. Social Cognitive &
Affective Neuroscience, 1, 75-86.
doi:10.1093/scan/nsl013
 Shtulman, A. and Valcarcel, J. (2012). Scientific
knowledge suppresses but does not supplant
earlier intuitions. Cognition, 124, 209-215.

 What are your questions?

 Boring, E.G. (1950). A history of experimental psychology.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
 Griffith, C. R. (1925). Psychology and its relations to
athletic competition. American Physical Education
Review, 30, 193-199.
 Kroll, W. & Lewis, G. (1970). America's First Sport
Psychologist. Quest (00336297), 131-4.
 Weinberg, R. S. & Gould, D. (2007). Foundations of sport
and exercise psychology. Champaign, IL: Human
Kinetics.